- The latest New York Times/Siena College poll showed a tightening race between Biden and Trump.
- Trump now leads Biden 46% to 45% among registered voters, a decline from February’s 48% to 43% lead.
- Biden is winning over more of his 2020 supporters and boasts leads with women and suburbanites.
President Joe Biden has gained ground on former President Donald Trump in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, cutting into a persistent lead that the ex-president has held for months.
Last month, both Biden and Trump secured enough delegates to become the presumptive nominees ahead of their party conventions and the November election. And Biden, who has so far struggled to rally young voters and minorities around his reelection bid, has seemingly clawed back some of his 2020 support in that time.
In the latest Times/Siena poll, Trump led Biden by a razor-thin 46% to 45% margin among registered voters, a tightening from the 48% to 43% advantage the former president enjoyed in a February poll.
How Biden gained ground on Trump
The poll showed that Biden is now winning 89% of his 2020 backers, an increase from February when 83% of the incumbent’s 2020 supporters said they’d vote for him again in November.
In the survey, 94% of Trump’s 2020 supporters said they’d vote for him again, a slight decline from the 97% of 2020 backers who in February indicated that they’d cast a ballot for him in the fall.
Despite Biden’s 38% job approval rating, he boasted sizable leads with female voters (53%-37%), voters aged 65 and older (51%-42%), Black voters (69%-16%), and suburban voters (51%-40%).
Meanwhile, Trump held advantages with men (57%-37%), rural voters (62%-29%), voters aged 45 to 64 (52%-43%), and white non-college graduates (62%-30%).
Trump benefits from having stronger numbers on the economy (64% approved of him on the issue) and immigration (50% approved of his handling of the issue).
Despite low unemployment and a strong jobs market, 63% of respondents disapproved of Biden’s handling of the economy, an issue that is perhaps the most serious threat to his reelection bid.
In recent weeks, Biden has ramped up his campaign schedule, appearing in Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He is seeking to tout his administration’s record and boost his visibility as more voters start to pay closer attention to the presidential race.
Abortion rights, which was always poised to be a major issue this year, has taken on greater urgency in Arizona, where the state’s conservative Supreme Court this week ruled that a near-total abortion ban from 1864 could be enforced.
Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, are running hard on abortion and continue to point to Trump’s appointment of anti-abortion conservatives to the US Supreme Court as the reason why Roe v. Wade was struck down — which has subsequently created a patchwork of abortion laws across the country.
